If your Makerspace or Lego Robotics classroom has been active for any amount of time, you’ve probably accumulated gallons of unsorted Lego pieces. Close your eyes, and you can probably hear the sound of a kid digging through a box of bricks, looking for the right connector or beam for a new robot. And digging, and digging, and digging. And even though this hunting is part of the fun, it can get frustrating really fast. It can slow down creativity and innovation.
There are right and wrong ways to organize all of that Lego
Wrong: By color. Except if your focus is on making art. For making inventions and robots, color doesn’t matter.
Wrong: In dozens of tiny containers for every single type of piece. A serious adult hobbyist might be able to maintain that kind of system, but middle schoolers sharing one collection could never. Plus, there’s always one new kind of piece that needs a special home.
Wrong: In original-kit sets, except Mindstorms Robot educational kits. See below for more on this.
Wrong: All in one huge bin or multiple mixed boxes and drawers. Nobody has time for that.
Right: The following seven categories
There is a system that middle school teachers and students can use and maintain in order to keep Lego ready for creating! All you need is seven (or ten) clear plastic bins.
- Axles
- Wheels and Gears
- Large Flat Plates (bigger than the palm of your hand)
- Big Specialty Pieces (can be combined with Large Flat Plates)
- “Regular” Bricks (the type found in a retail Creator set for kids)
- Technic Pieces (with rows of holes)
- “Small” Pieces (smaller than the end of your finger, including the smallest bricks and beams)
And the following additional categories if you need to store Mindstorms Robot parts:
- EV3 or NXT bricks and charging cords
- Motors and Sensors
- Wires
The Categories
Here’s what the system looks like:
AXLES
Axles come in every size and always filter to the bottom of any container. Keep them separate. By the way, axles are measured by how long they are in “holes,” compared to the Technic beams. The Axles category supersedes “Smalls,” which would otherwise include most of the axles too.
WHEELS AND GEARS
Every wheel, gear, track, tread, and belt goes in here.
LARGE FLAT PLATES
What is “large”? We decided to define it as larger than your palm. This includes some “long” flat plates too.
BIG SPECIALTY PIECES
The FIRST Lego League fields generate a lot of these from year to year. They’re large/medium pieces that don’t fit other categories, or that only occur in small numbers in your collection. In our room, these are in the same drawer as the Large Flat Plates, and it works.
“REGULAR” BRICKS
If it was in your very first set of real Legos, it probably goes in here. Unless it’s Large/Flat or Small.
TECHNIC PIECES
Straight or bent beams with holes. Some have rounded ends and some are more brick-like.
SMALL
Smaller than the end of your finger or so. Note that there are bricks and Technic pieces in here. You could also include the small wheels and gears, but we have found it easier to keep all wheels and gears together.
Containers
Look for containers that are:
- Not huge
- Transparent
- Plastic
- In a drawer system but removable
- Shallow and deep (some of each)
We use drawers like this:
Advantages to this particular one: removable drawers, shallow and deep, organizer top. Disadvantages: there’s a channel at the front of each drawer that catches small pieces. I also assembled it WITHOUT the casters – on purpose. It’s light enough for a middle school kid to lift and move if needed, even when full.
Here’s what our FLL team’s stash looks like:
Note the extra “axles” bin on the top. Our FLL team is nine years old, so the collection is huge! The “smalls” have outgrown a single drawer – there are now three of them! We could stand to get another whole tower, but one of the other coaches got a tower of these lidded drawers instead. It works for small parts and projects-in-progress, but not for the larger pieces.
Note also that the transparent drawers allow visibility to what’s underneath the top layer! I frequently see kids lift the drawer overhead to see if the piece they want is at the very bottom. Finally, note that the smalls and axles are in shallow drawers.
Kids can maintain a system like this if you show them how. In fact, it’s a good idea to involve them in the initial sorting process, so they’ll know where to look.
Regarding Robot Kits
If you have the Lego Mindstorms Education Kits and use any type of matching curriculum, keep those kits sorted into their original bins! Make kids accountable for counting and sorting the kit they use, and check them in at the end of the semester. (Taking care of supplies in this way is important to Makerspace education! Take time for it.)
Source: Lego Education
If you don’t have this set with the divided bin, or if you don’t use a curriculum that depends on this set, consider the seven categories above instead, with additional containers for motors and sensors, wires, and the Mindstorms bricks themselves.
Happy sorting!
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